I Started These 138 Video Games In 2015, 'Finished' 24

For the 10th year in a row (!), I've tallied the games I played in the past 12 months and have counted the ones I've "finished." It's clear that it's time for some changes.

I started this practice in late 2006, a year in which I played 102 games including the likes of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Okami, 50 Cent Bulletproof and Steambot Chronicles. That year, I played through Elite Beat Agents, Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, Suikoden V and 15 others.

I made the list an annual tradition, a way to track what I'd played for fun and as part of having this lucky career that I've got writing about video games. From the start, I emphasised the number of games I had finished, because I saw too many people pontificating about games they'd barely played. I wanted to encourage getting to the end of a game, of considering games in full.

For many years I avoided the inherent pitfalls of the type of list I was making. I didn't have to worry about talking about older games that I'd already finished once and was playing again, because I seldom returned to old games that I'd already finished once. There were too many interesting new games available to play. I didn't have to worry, at first, about the impossibility of finishing many multiplayer games, because I nearly exclusively played single-player games.

Times have changed, my gaming habits have changed, and this year's list is therefore full of personal revelations.

This was the year I finally got nostalgic and played some old favourites. In January, I dove back into the first Metroid Prime and played a glorious third of it before getting distracted by new things. In autumn, I played the 3DS port of my favourite game ever, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, though I didn't finish it again, either. In winter, I dove back into some of my favourite Nintendo 64 games via the Xbox One's Rare Replay and spent a joyful couple of days playing through Blast Corps — now the only game in the past 10 years that I'd already finished and played through again.

This was also the year that I finally got into multiplayer gaming. In past years, I made token efforts with various online shooters, but I didn't enjoy them. This year, I was hooked for a few weeks on the co-op sci-fi game Helldivers. I fell deep into Destiny, confidently co-opping with friends and strangers alike. At year's end, I neglected single-player games such as Metal Gear Solid V and The Witcher III so I could play more of Black Ops III's co-op Zombies. I still don't lose my mind over multiplayer gaming. I'm still the guy who was excited to discover that Splatoon has a very good single-player mode. But I now think a list like the one below exaggerates the virtue of finishing single-player games and undersells the pleasure of regularly playing an unfinishable multiplayer game.

Times are changing in general, making my old logic for these lists less workable. I've classified "finishing" a game as reaching the final credits, which I did with Assassin's Creed Rogue in 2014. I played 20 more hours of the game in 2015, yet I'd already started and "finished" it in 2014, so it doesn't make the list. And what if a new game actually contains 30 older games, some of them emulated or remade versions of games I had played before? That was the conundrum of counting Rare Replay in 2015. Had I only played the first RC Pro-Am back in the 90s, or had I played the second one? Did an emulated version of the Xbox 360's Perfect Dark count? And so on.

This year's list tells me a lot of things, including that, after a 2014 when I finished three Lego games, I might finally be over the series. In 2015, I bailed on Lego Batman 3 pretty early. I also am embarrassed with how much time I spent playing time-wasting Cookie-Clicker clones on my iPhone in the final weeks of the year, when I could have been playing better stuff on my phone, tablet, 3DS or Vita. This year's list reminds me of the games — some new, some old and just sitting on my consoles or PC — I still badly want to get to, including: Ziggurat, MGSV, Fallout 4, Undertale, Emily is Away, Until Dawn, Life is Strange, Bedlam, Heroes of the Storm, the Metro games, Elite Dangerous, Bloodborne, Darkest Dungeon, Renowned Explorers and more.

Final throat-clearing notes: My PC gaming plummeted in 2015, because I badly need a new gaming PC. My Vita playing also went to near zero. I played some DS games in 2014, none in 2015. Most significantly, I played zero games on my Xbox 360 and "only" played my PS3 for those 20 more hours of AC Rogue. I am clearly done with the old gen.

That's that. Another year done. A decade-long project carries on. I'll keep doing these lists, because I like keeping a record, remembering what I played, and maybe inspiring people to try a game they hadn't heard much about.

On with the list!

My 2015 Games Played/Finished List

(Games I started listed below. Finished games are bolded. Games not from 2015 are noted as such.)

3DS

(19 games played; 2 finished)

Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer

Boxboy! - FINISHED (My favourite game of the year!)

Chibi-Robo Photo Finder

Chibi-Robo Zip Lash - FINISHED

Code Name S.T.E.A.M.

Dr. Mario: Miracle Cure

The Legend of Zelda Majora's Mask 3D

The Legend of Zelda: Tri-Force Heroes

Mario Vs Donkey Kong: Tipping Stars

Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate

Nintendo Badge Arcade

Pokémon Picross

Pokémon Rumble World

Pokémon Shuffle

Puzzles & Dragons + Super Mario Bros. Edition

SteamWorld Dig

SteamWorld Heist

Stretchmo

Yo-Kai Watch

iOS

(23 games played; 2 finished)

10000000

Adventure Capitalist (I'm going to delete this right now.)

Bullet Boy

Clicker Heroes (I'm deleting this one, too.)

David

Digit & Dash

Downwell

Dungeon of the Endless (I had played this on PC the year before but played a lot more of it on iPad in 2015.)

Rare Replay: Banjo-Kazooie (I played through this game and the next one a dozen times on my N64, but I think these Xbox 360 ports count as fresh releases. Maybe not. Who's counting?)

Rare Replay: Banjo-Tooie

Rare Replay: Battletoads

Rare Replay: Battletoads Arcade

Rare Replay: Cobra Triangle

Rare Replay: Digger T. Rock (This is a little lame having all these Rare Replay games in here, like I went and played a huge amount. But such is the nature of these lists. I played most of the pre-N64 Rare Replay games for just a few minutes, enough to remember how much I detest super-difficult old-school games.)

Rare Replay: Grabbed By The Ghoulies

Rare Replay: Gunfright

Rare Replay: Jetpac Refueled

Rare Replay: Kameo Elements of Power (I was surprised how much I liked this and plan to go back to play it through.)

Rare Replay: Killer Instinct

Rare Replay: Knight Lore

Rare Replay: Lunar Jetman

Rare Replay: Perfect Dark

Rare Replay: Perfect Dark Zero

Rare Replay: RC Pro-Am II

Rare Replay: Sabre Wulf

Rare Replay: Slalom

Rare Replay: Snake Rattle N Roll

Rare Replay: Solar Jetman

Rare Replay: Underwurlde

Roundabout

ScreamRide

Star Wars Battlefront (Another multiplayer game I played more than a lot of other games on the list.)

State of Decay: Year-One Edition

Sunset Overdrive - FINISHED (I finally finished this excellent game and its DLC in 2015.)

I was pretty surprised when I counted 36 games, some I had started previously and pretty much all bar a few were to the credits only, I did hardly any side quests as I was in 'pile of shame completion' mode. Examples: F:NV and Skyrim in 15 hours each as I only did the main quests. In fact I just did a very rough calculation on how many hours I spent playing and came up with 557, or on average 90 minutes per day. The longest amount being 70 hours in Bloodborne.

I actually forgot I finished Red Alert 1 and Need for Speed: Underground this year too! :D

Triple AAA games nailing the brief. Indie games surprising people out of nowhere, and expansions and patches that completely turn a game around. It's been a good year for games - now it's time for you to vote for your favourite.